SR source to science

This issue brings together papers from the satellite meeting of the XVIII IUCr Congress held last August. The meeting covered topics ranging from thèsource to science'. Such an ambitious theme was appropriate given the location of the meeting, where the ®rst dedicated synchrotron radiation source was designed and built and from where the ®rst recognition of synchrotron radiation work in the form of a Nobel prize to Sir John Walker came (Vol. 6, Part 4). At the IUCr Congress in August 1999, the new and innovative electronic journal service, Synchrotron Radiation Online, was launched. This gives easy access to the complete text of all regular 1999 articles. The articles are available in HTML and PDF formats, and are richly hyperlinked for easy navigation within and between articles. The service also provides search mechanisms, e-mail alerting and immediate access to supplementary data. The online free access ®nishes its run in May, as publicized. We urge you and your libraries to sign up for access to Synchrotron Radiation Online. The debate on the new sources, SOLEIL and DIAMOND, has continued to attract much attention from the media, politicians and scientists, both in France and the UK. A positive aspect of this public debate has been the increased awareness of the general public about synchrotron radiation. On 13 March the UK's Science Minister announced the location of the joint UK±French project, DIAMOND. Science Minister, Lord Sainsbury, said, `The new synchrotron is a major capital investment, worth approximately £200 million, which will place British science at the forefront of global research. Our goal is to create the best possible facility for UK and French science ± for both current and future users. After a careful analysis of scien-ti®c, technical, operational and ®nancial issues and the views of the funding partners, we have decided that the way forward is to build the new synchrotron at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Didcot in Oxfordshire. It was a dif®cult decision and the Daresbury Laboratory made a good case for its location in Daresbury.' On 15 March the French Select Committee reported on the synchrotron issue. They said, `Because of the extra cost associated with the access for users to machines abroad, a share in Anglo± French, German or Swiss machines can only be a supplementary investment in certain ®elds, such as biology, but certainly not a solution replacing a national synchrotron source. In order to maintain competence …